- There isn't much room in the rivet's holes or through the 1/8"-1/4" gap for a borescope. You can't see very much due to the residual black compound.
- From a closer visual inspection, it appears that the flat roof sheet goes over the smaller curved aluminum rain gutter. Both are then covered and anchored in place by the riveted aluminum extrusion.
- Question: Is the black compound between the extrusion and aluminum sheets a sealant, adhesive or both? ie) Are the rivets doing all the work at holding all the sheets together or are they being helped with adhesive/sealant?

Both the stanleyengineeredfastening.com and hansonrivet.com websites have offered me considerable insight on the many different types of blind rivets. From my analysis, I believe Bluebird chose to use the "Magna-Tite Structural Rivets part# MTP-B6 on our M380. I'm hoping to find some Monday once the local suppliers are open.

With the new rivets, I'm planning on using the Loctite PL Fast Grab Premium Adhesive/Sealant from Home Depot.

Hopefully with the combination of the two, this situation will be under control and it won't happen again. I'll keep you all posted.

The rivets in your photos are missing the pull stem. Did you punch or drill out the pull stem from the center hole? If not, the stem fell out allowing the rivet to become loose and eventually lose its grip.

Also called the locking stem. New blind rivets have the stem sticking out of the head (like a pop rivet). Unlike a pop-rivet, large blind fasteners like these take quite a pull and you’ll need a tool like the big rivnut puller shown in one of the posts.

You can measure the hole, you said 7/32” diameter earlier. Drill to .250 diameter and pull a quarter inch diameter blind fastener into that hole. You need to measure total material thickness you are pulling through to determine the correct length of the blind fastener.

When you pull that size fastener, you’ll get a nice loud pop when the pull stem breaks and the remainder of it locks in place in the center of the rivet.

Jim:
Thanks for your input. When I lifted the rivet, its' stem was left in the hole. I was able to punch the stem and the remaining broken rivet back into the roof cavity.
My proposed replacement Magna-Tite rivet have a tensile strength rating of 500lbs. Your and Van's suggestion for a big rivet puller is a good one.

Make sure it can pull the size and style of fastener you will use. Lots of styles and pull stem diameters out there, many different pullers as well.

Looking at Magna-Tite rivets on Tacoma Screw - that looks like an excellent choice. The one I was looking at was title "1/4" grip Magna Tite" - but in fact was a 1/4" diameter rivet with a grip length of .500 to .750 - likely too long for your total material thickness - but I don't know how thick the total material stackup is for that skin and extrusion you are riveting into. Make sure to measure it (I use a piece of bent wire) and spec your rivet grip length to suit.

I was able to complete the replacement of the 25 popped rivets on our roof (driver's side). At this time, the original passenger side rivets all appear well anchored. The following is an outline of what was done:

1. I chose to follow both Jim and Doug's advice and bought the one size larger 1/4" vs. BB's 3/16" blind rivets.
2. I believe BB used the Huch Magna-Tite rivets Model# MTP-B6-10S on the original installation. OD=3/16", Grip Length: 0.375"-0.625", Tensile Strength: 450 lbs., 'S' indicates Sealant in the rivet.
3. At fastenal.com website, I was able to obtain Huch Magna-Tite Model# MTP-B8-10S. OD=1/4", Grip Length: 0.375-0.625", Tensile Strength: 890 lbs., Hole Size:0.250-0.263" (1/4-17/64"). Fastenal's item#:11102620.
4. As indicated by the tensile numbers, the 1/4" rivets are about twice as strong as the 3/16".
5. At Harbor Freight (item#:66422), I was able to buy a 17.5" Heavy Duty Hand Riveter (see attached photo). It's certainly a requirement for these high tensile strength 1/4" rivets.
6. The sealant/adhesive I decided to use is E6000 (see attached photo). It's available at Home Depot or Walmart. It's tensile strength of 3500 psi is about 6 times stronger than the 3M 5200 Marine Fast Cure adhesive of 600 psi.
7. Unfortunately, the available gap between the roof and rain gutter is very small making it hard injecting even a small amount of adhesive.
8. After pulling out/punching into the roof cavity the remnants of the popped rivets, I enlarged the existing hole with a 17/64" drill bit.
9. I needed every inch of the 17.5" manual rivet gun to handle those strong 1/4" rivets.

At this point in time, the repair work looks good and seems to be holding up well.

The one you suggested is good for Duck work Jim. Scary as it is I suppose it could be usd for ducts also.

These folks probably made the one I have.
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